If it wasn't clear before, it's certainly clear now that to beat a good team, the Illini need Demetri McCamey to have a good game, and a game in which McCamey shoots 1-10 from the field (with as many missed dunks as made baskets) won't get it done against a team like Purdue. It would help if the Illini had another point guard on the roster to run the show when McCamey is in a funk, but we won't have one until next year, when it's too late to help McCamey. Hmmm...you'd think after having Dee Brown and Deron Williams during his first two seasons at Illinois, Bruce Weber would be OK with multiple point guards on the roster, or at least that he'd recruit more than one every four years. But I digress.
So Illinois falls back to .500 in Big Ten play, which amazingly is still good for 4th in the conference standings - with three weeks to go before the Big Ten Tournament, only three teams (Ohio State, Purdue, and Wisconsin) have winning records in conference play. As poorly as the Illini are playing, if they win their remaining home games (Michigan, Indiana, Iowa), they'll finish no worse than .500 in conference play and probably still make the NCAA tournament. But today's game represents a wasted opportunity - other than possibly upsetting Michigan State at the Breslin Center, this game was probably the Illini's last reasonable shot at a statement win during the regular season, which means that the Illini can't afford to slip up in any of those remaining home games. It also looks as if this team incapable of building momentum and putting together a string of good games, so even if they do somehow get to the NCAA tournament it'll be as a one-and-done proposition. Considering that we had pretty much everyone of consequence back from last year's team and added some high-impact freshman, that's another major disappointment that falls at the feet of Bruce Weber.
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